Chương 5
“What do we have?” he asked.
She summarized the porch interview, Caleb’s statement, the locker contents, and Rourke’s claim about the gun being planted after the second floor was cleared.
Hollis listened without interruption. When she finished, he removed the lid from his coffee and stared into it as though hoping for different facts.
“You arrested a decorated fire captain on his porch while his chief was already preparing a public statement.”
“I arrested a man who removed a weapon from a fatal-fire scene.”
“I’m not saying you were wrong.”
“You’re saying Vale moves quickly.”
“I’m saying he moves before other people know there’s a race.”
Lena opened the Harrow Street incident file.
The warehouse had been owned by Branton Storage and Distribution, a regional company with six properties and a record of aggressive cost cutting that never quite became criminal. The Harrow Street building stored restaurant equipment, cleaning supplies, furniture, and pallets of rechargeable batteries used in commercial floor machines.
The first 911 call came from Luis Ortega, the fifty-four-year-old night custodian. He reported smoke near the second-floor records office and said the alarm panel was showing a sprinkler fault.
His call ended when he began coughing.
Firefighters entered four minutes after the first engine arrived. They found heavy smoke on the second floor, a locked fire door, and a dry sprinkler line. Ortega was located twenty-six minutes later in a supply corridor. He was transported without a pulse and pronounced dead at the hospital.
The preliminary origin assessment placed the first sustained burning in a storage room adjacent to the records office. The exact cause remained undetermined.
At 2:08 Wednesday morning, the incident commander declared the second floor structurally unsafe and ordered nonessential personnel out.
At 2:21, a safety officer recorded the floor as cleared.
Rourke’s name did not appear in any entry after 1:54.
Deputy Chief Vale’s name appeared only on the initial command sheet. He had officially left at 1:32.
Lena opened the department vehicle log.
Vale’s command SUV had returned to headquarters at 3:06.
There was no record of where it had been between 1:32 and 3:06.
“GPS?” she asked.
Hollis shook his head. “Fire says the unit wasn’t transmitting.”
“Convenient.”
“Careful. You sound like Rourke.”
Her phone vibrated.
Caleb had sent a message from an unfamiliar number.
Someone came to my apartment.
Lena called immediately.
He answered on the fourth ring, whispering.
“Where are you?”
“My sister’s.”
“Who went to your apartment?”
“Battalion Chief Egan.”
“Did he enter?”
“My neighbor said he had a key.”
“Does Egan have lawful access?”
“No.”
“What did he take?”
“I don’t know. I’m not going back.”
“Stay with your sister. I’ll send officers.”
“No uniforms.”
“Caleb.”
“Vale will know.”
“Vale already knows you spoke to me.”
Silence.
Lena could hear a television in the background and a child asking for something to drink.
“Who told him?” Caleb asked.
“You were seen at Rourke’s house.”
“No. Vale knew before that.”
“How?”
Caleb breathed into the phone.
“Because he told me to go there.”
Lena stood.
“What exactly did Vale say?”
“He called me at work. Said Captain Rourke was having a difficult time and I should check on him.”
“When?”
“About twenty minutes before I drove over.”
“Why would a deputy chief send a paramedic to check on an armed captain?”
“I didn’t know he had the gun.”
“Did Vale?”
Caleb did not answer.
“Caleb.”
“He said Rourke had found something that could make him do something stupid.”
Lena looked at Hollis.
“Do you have the call record?”
“It came through station dispatch.”
“Do not delete anything. Do not call anyone. An officer will meet you.”
“I said no uniforms.”
“You can be afraid of the department, or you can let me keep you alive. Pick one for tonight.”
The line went quiet.
Then Caleb said, “Fine.”
Lena ended the call.
Hollis had already reached for his jacket.
They drove to Caleb’s apartment with two plainclothes officers and a locksmith.
Nothing appeared disturbed from the hallway. The door was locked, the frame intact, the deadbolt undamaged.
Caleb lived on the third floor of a six-unit brick building above a dentist’s office. His neighbor, an elderly man wearing a sleeveless undershirt beneath an open robe, identified Battalion Chief Egan from a department website.
“He knocked first,” the neighbor said. “Then he used a key. I figured maybe the young man had called him.”
“How long was he inside?”
“Five minutes. Ten. I was making eggs.”
“At seven at night?”
“I like eggs.”
Inside the apartment, Lena found no obvious theft. The living room held a gray sofa, an exercise bike used as a clothes rack, and three unopened shipping boxes. A child’s drawing of an ambulance was taped to the refrigerator.
Caleb’s bedroom closet stood open.
A navy duffel bag lay on the floor. Its zipper had been pulled halfway back.
Lena photographed everything before touching it.
The duffel contained spare uniforms, trauma shears, a stethoscope, energy bars, and a sealed packet of sterile dressings. A rectangular dust-free space at the bottom suggested something had been removed.
Caleb, speaking through his sister’s phone, identified the missing item as an old department tablet.
“It doesn’t work,” he said.
“Why did you have it?”
“Station Six replaced the units last year. They were throwing it away.”
“Did it contain department data?”
“It was wiped.”
“Then why take it?”
“I use it for movies when I travel.”
“Did anyone else know you had it?”
“Rourke. Sutter. A few people.”
“Could Sutter have used it the night you treated him?”
Caleb paused.
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“He asked for five minutes alone.”
“Did you see the screen afterward?”
“No.”
“Did it connect to station wireless?”
“It would have automatically.”
Lena looked at Hollis.
May you like
A wiped department tablet connecting to a municipal network might still leave authentication records. If Sutter had used it, the network logs could show what he accessed, though not necessarily what he wrote or saved.
“Was there anything else on it?” she asked.
